As the presidential race heats up, the focus is increasingly on the nation’s slow economic recovery. Last week, President Obama was widely criticized for saying the private sector is "doing fine," while Mitt Romney attacked public sector unions by calling for fewer teachers, firefighters and police officers. We talk to Ralph Nader about the 2012 election and the lessons of last week’s victory by Scott Walker, governor of what Nader...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has survived a historic recall election more than a year after launching a controversial effort to roll back the bargaining rights of the state’s public workers. Walker outspent his opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, seven to one after raising millions of dollars from right-wing donors outside the state. We’re joined by John Nichols, a correspondent for The Nation. "We always like to tell...

In the most expensive political race in Wisconsin’s history, voters will decide today whether Republican Gov. Scott Walker will finish his first term. The recall effort was launched last year after Walker stripped public sector unions of their collective bargaining rights and reduced their benefits. We go to Milwaukee for a debate about Walker, his Democratic challenger Tom Barrett, the role of public sector unions and what the vote...

Wisconsin Democratic primary voters have picked Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett to face controversial Republican Gov. Scott Walker in a recall election. Protests erupted across Wisconsin last year after Walker announced plans to eliminate almost all collective bargaining rights for most public workers, as well as slash their pay and benefits. Walker and Barrett will now square off in a recall election on June 5. We go to Madison to speak with...

As Mitt Romney sweeps Tuesday’s primaries in Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington, D.C., we go to Madison to speak with The Nation’s John Nichols. He notes Romney has steered further toward the right wing as his campaign progresses. In Wisconsin, Romney channeled the anti-union policies of embattled Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. "In many cases, though he didn’t appear for photographs with Scott Walker, Mitt Romney was...

On the 44th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., we look at his history of activism in Wisconsin, a state that has been central to the history of labor organizing, and beyond. Near the end of his life, King was helping to organize members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which was founded in Wisconsin in 1932. King argued that labor rights were human rights and civil rights,...

One of the newly named co-chairs of President Obama’s re-election campaign is openly criticizing the President’s decision to accept super PAC funds, his record on civil liberties, and his handling of the war in Afghanistan. Former U.S. Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin has described Obama’s decision on super PACs as "dancing the with the devil." At the time Feingold was named a campaign election co-chair on...

Today marks the first anniversary of the Wisconsin uprising that erupted after Republican Gov. Scott Walker announced plans to eliminate almost all collective bargaining rights for most public workers, as well as slash their pay and benefits. Now, one year later, Walker is in the midst of a recall effort and faces an investigation for campaign corruption. "People have begun to recognize that they shouldn’t just wait for...

Today we look back at 2011, a year that saw the U.S. killing of Osama Bin Laden, the ouster of a dictator in Egypt and the death of one in Libya, the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, and the expansion of the secret U.S. drone war in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Arabian Peninsula. As U.S. troops leave Iraq, thousands of private security contractors remain to guard the U.S. embassy—the largest in the world. The Horn of...